


The Bird Incident of 2004

by Mars_and_Moon



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Blood, Canon Compliant, Gen, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, No Incest, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Stuttering Diego Hargreeves, Vomiting, bittersweet-ish ending, i will cut u if u read it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 02:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mars_and_Moon/pseuds/Mars_and_Moon
Summary: Reginald was a bastard who like to torture his children. Like the unspoken of bird incident.





	The Bird Incident of 2004

**Author's Note:**

> {request fill from my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fuckreggiehargreeves)}  
> this got away from me. here’s 2k words of angst.

Klaus was not a necromancer. It didn’t matter how many interviewers called him one; he couldn’t bring things back to life. That was not his forte–at least he didn’t think it was; he figured Reginald–not dad, because he didn’t deserve that term–would have made him do twenty-million tests if he could bring things back to life. It would be kind of cool, but he wasn’t on that side of the scale. He was barely even on the scale of life.

Which wasn’t fun. Especially because Reginald was a bastard who like to torture his children. Like the unspoken of _bird incident._

Klaus had been minding his own damn business, walking towards his room after dinner with a bag of pills in his pocket, ready to get fucked up and maybe actually sleep that night. Then Reginald had called him into his office and went on a lecture about how he needed to “expand his mind” and “face challenges head on instead of running away.”

Klaus was pretty sure he was talking about the drugs, which was surprising because he had always given less than zero fucks; as long as Klaus had shown up to interviews and missions, Reginald hadn’t even batted an eye.

He had been dismissed after almost an hour of ranting, mostly about him being a disappointment and needing to get his act together as to not stain the academy’s reputation. Klaus held his tongue and didn’t interrupt by pointing out the academy had never had a decent reputation in the first place.

Klaus went to his room and promptly got high enough to forget the lecture had ever even happened. A mistake, not that he knew it at the time.

* * *

The next day Klaus had slept through breakfast, and was still half high after he had woken up. Reginald kept giving him  _a look_  during the team-training-session, something that ended with Luther having a bloody nose and Ben locking himself in his room. None of which was remotely out of the ordinary.

They six of them sat down for dinner at 7:25pm sharp, it was Sunday and that meant roasted chicken; Mom had made spinach and bread rolls to go with it. Nobody spoke; Ben read a book with a green cover. Diego and Luther glared at each other. Both of them still have a smudge of blood on them. Allison sat quietly but mouthed the words to the script of whatever secret audition she had. Vanya stayed silent, keeping her eyes on the plate in front of her, and Klaus gripped the bag of pills in his pocket and counted down the seconds until dinner was over. His high was fading and there was some angry pre-teen in fifties clothing glaring at all of them.

Klaus never told Reginald about the ghosts in the house, he didn’t need that trauma. He already had enough from everything the man had done.

They were dismissed at 7:55pm, all of them leaving quickly expect for Diego who helped Mom wash the dishes. Lights out wasn’t until 10:15pm.

The time between used to be for more training, but that ended when they had turned twelve and even Luther had not wanted to train after dinnertime. So it became the only free time they had; there was no sneaking out from your room during the afternoon because all of the windows had locks.

Klaus walked back to his room, trying to ignore the fact that the ghost were getting louder. He turned the knob and walked it, but promptly screamed when he saw Reginald standing the middle of his room. Holding a birdcage with an actual bird in it.

_What the literal fuck._

“Number Four,” Reginald said, his voice was laced with disdain filled his voice. It matched well with the unimpressed look etched onto his face. Klaus hadn’t been scared of him in years, the drugs numbing out the fear and control Reginald once had.

But Klaus was severely creeped the fuck out by him. Because, first of all: how the  _fuck_ had he gotten into Klaus’s room, it had been like ten minutes since dinner had ended? Second of all: why the  _fuck_ did he have a  _bird_?

Fucking creepy, and super weird. The house was a goddamn nightmare. Reginald was still looking at him. Fuck.

“Do you remember our discussion from yesterday, Number Four?” Reginald sounded, almost nice when he asked. Which made a fuckton of warning signals off in Klaus’s head, because when had Reginald ever sounded nice. Klaus didn’t even have the chance to answer before Reginald moved closer to his bed–which, fuck no, move away  _all of his drugs were there_ –placed down the birdcage and gestured for Klaus to come over.

_He should absolutely not go over there_ , his mind supplied unhelpfully as if Klaus wasn’t about to run out of the damn room. Or out of the damn house. But his treacherous body moved towards the bed and now it was too late to run because Reginald would be able to grab him. Fucking fuck. Fuck his life. Fuck the pre-teen girl in the dinning room. Fuck the creepy birdcage, and fuck Reginald.

And speaking of the devil, he had at some point taken out a knife. Klaus almost laughed, almost asked if he forgot Klaus wasn’t the knife guy. But he stayed silent and took the knife. Please, whatever higher power there may be let what Klaus think is about to happen actually happen. He’ll get sober, he’ll become a nun, he’ll only take baths in holy water. He’ll do whatever, just fucking please.

Thankfully, someone was feeling nice that day. The figure it the cage wasn’t moving; Klaus had been a little too preoccupied at notice before, but it was already dead, with some blood on the bottom of the cage. Klaus almost threw up right then and there, especially when his fear was confirmed and he saw that the knife he had been handed also had blood on it.

Fuck his life. Did he already say that? Well, he’ll say it again: fuck his life. And fuck Reginald and his creepy ass training. A dead bird? That was fucking traumatizing, even Klaus could see that and he had drugs in his system and was probably in fucking shock because  _there was a dead bird on his bed._

Reginald was unfazed, and he stood there talking about Klaus having physical contact with the dead bird via the bloody knife and he should use that advantage. Klaus did not, instead he dropped the knife like it was made of fire, and promptly threw up on Reginald’s shoes. He then proceeded to sit on his bed, causing the cage to tip over. He had force himself not to throw up again.

Reginald left pretty quickly after that, muttering about  _disappointments_  and he  _didn’t know why he tried at this point_. He hadn’t taken the knife or birdcage with him, out of spite or he simply forgot what had gotten them into this mess.

Klaus couldn’t even be bothered to grab the pills from his pocket after it was all said and done. There were not enough drugs in the world to make him feel better after all of that, he wouldn’t even try.

He heard footsteps walking towards his room. He curled into himself and really fucking hoped it wasn’t Reginald coming back for part two of whatever literal torture he was doing.  

“Klaus?” A very distinctly Not Reginald voice called out. Klaus didn’t let himself relax, he wasn’t sure he could.  _God, they had chicken for dinner._ Fuck, Klaus might be a vegetarian now.

“Klaus, I’m going to come in now,” the person said again. It sounded like Diego? Fuck, if it was then he had to move, get the cage off his bed and shove the knife somewhere.

It was, in fact, Diego, his sleeves still pushed up and the edges wet from washing the dishes. “Hey, are you…” His voice trailed off, taking in the scene that laid before him. What a sight it must have been. Klaus, cowering on his bed, blood on the floor and sheets because the bird was freshly dead and still bleeding.

And of course–“Klaus, what is a dead bird doing on your bed?”

Klaus didn’t respond. He didn’t let himself meet Diego’s eyes, he wanted to be alone–with the bird, the  _dead_ bird–and take all of his pills, pass out for like, sixteen hours and never look at Reginald again.

Klaus could hear Diego’s exasperation coming off of him in waves. And he couldn’t help it, he burst into laughter. Diego did not find it amusing. He moved closer to him.

And fuck, it probably looked worse from there.

“K-Klaus stop fucking laughing. Why is t-there a dead bird?” Diego had stuttered, and Klaus did stop laughing. Diego hadn’t stuttered in front of any of them for months, something he was justly proud of.

“Di, tell me why you think there’s a bird on my bed.”

“Are you high?”

“Nope!” Klaus said, popping the “ _p_ ” more than needed. He was detoxing, which was not the same as being high.

Diego paused for a second. “Did…did dad do something?” And his voice was soft, and Klaus hated it.

But jokes were invented for a reason. “On the nose, dear Diego! Our father is an abusive bastard! And now he kills small animals to further torture me!” Klaus wasn’t blinking away tears, wasn’t feeling the need to throw up again, wasn’t feeling the urge to scrub his hands until they were raw and red and  _clean_. Nope.

Diego faltered, which was fair. “Klaus? Did you throw up? It smells like throw up and da–Reginald isn’t really a throw up type. More of a–”

“More of a  _‘make my children throw up because I’m evil’_  type of person?” Shitty joke, Diego never really laughed at the countless “Reginald is a Monster” jokes. None of them did, except Ben, but only when nobody could see him.

Diego could only be a nice person for so long before he got exasperated with all of the antics. “K-Klaus! Could you just–stop m-making jokes for once!”

No. Because without jokes all he had was serious conversations and serious conversations meant that he had to actually acknowledge that something was wrong with him. And he didn’t sign up for that.

“Klaus. P-Please? Just tell me if you’re okay.”

“Diego. I’m fine, Reginald is an asshole, not that it’s new information.” Diego gave him a highly unimpressed look. Shit. Fuck Diego being able to pick up when Klaus is having a mental breakdown.

But Diego didn’t respond, he turned around and left. Not closing the door, not letting out a long sigh; he just. Left.

Which was good. Now Klaus could get high in peace without hearing a whole speech about being weak, or whatever they said in the speeches. He stopped listening years ago.

So, Klaus reached around his pocket for the pills–hands  _not_ shaking, thank you very much–but before he could even get the baggie out of his pocket Diego had waltzed back into his room, without knocking; holding a wet cloth and a garbage bag, kind of looking like an idiot. He didn’t stop moving, didn’t talk or give a look, just walked right over to where Klaus was sitting on the bed, took the cloth, then grabbed Klaus’s hand and started wiping the blood off.

“It’s okay, Klaus. You don’t have to talk about it, but I w-won’t tell the others,” Diego said, grabbing the other hand. Klaus looked down and saw that it was almost bloodless.

After some more hard scrubbing nobody could’ve guessed blood had ever been there. Then, Diego took the garbage bag, picked up the bird and cage with it, and placed it outside of his room.

Klaus swallowed down most of his dignity, wringing his clean hands together and asked: “Hey Di? Can I spend the night in your room?”

He slept there for a week.

**Author's Note:**

> nobody:  
> me: reggie totally killed/made klaus kill birds or other small animals to see if he could control the ghosts of them and klaus throws up for a solid week every time and refuses to eat meat for like a year and still has nightmares about it even all those years later
> 
> ............whoops?


End file.
